In 1942, Operation Torch, resulting in an Allied victory, began during World War II as U.S. and British forces landed in French North Africa.

In 1950, during the Korean War, the first jet plane battle took place as U.S. Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown shot down a North Korean MiG-15.

In 1960, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the presidency.

In 1972, the premium cable TV network HBO (Home Box Office) made its debut with a showing of the movie “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

In 1980, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., announced that the U.S. space probe Voyager 1 had discovered a 15th moon orbiting the planet Saturn.

In 1987, 11 people were killed when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded as crowds gathered in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, for a ceremony honoring Britain’s war dead.

In 1994, midterm elections resulted in Republicans winning a majority in the Senate while at the same time gaining control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Ten years ago: A suicide car bombing of a housing complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 17 people. Front-runner Howard Dean became the first Democratic presidential candidate ever to reject taxpayer money and avoid the accompanying spending limits, saying he had to act to compete against President Bush’s cash-rich campaign.

Five years ago: Indonesia executed three Islamic militants for helping to plan and carry out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. An accident on a Russian nuclear submarine undergoing a test in the Sea of Japan asphyxiated 20 people on board. Florence Wald, a former Yale nursing dean whose interest in compassionate care led her to launch the first U.S. hospice program, died in Branford, Conn. at age 91.

One year ago: Wall Street saw stocks fall sharply for a second straight day as investors worried about the potential for gridlock in Washington. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 121 points, a day after plunging 313 points. The Congressional Budget Office warned that failing to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and spending could send the economy back into recession and push the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. Jared Loughner was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Ariz. that killed six people and wounded 13 others including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.